


Torn Away

by SkyDancerr



Series: 57 Mileven Prompts [6]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fear, Heavy Angst, Prompt Fic, this is kinda sad oof
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-22
Updated: 2019-07-22
Packaged: 2020-07-10 16:02:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19908412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SkyDancerr/pseuds/SkyDancerr
Summary: Eleven has had a horrible accident at school.Prompt 48: "I made a mistake."





	Torn Away

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this before season 3. The irony of Mike's fear coming true, though...if I could erase that ending from my mind, I would.
> 
> Also, this is kinda sad. I warned you.

The halls of Hawkins High were mostly empty as Mike Wheeler dug through his locker, transferring books from his locker to his backpack. He was also trying very hard to _not_ think about the huge test he had the next day.

He was just zipping his backpack closed when he heard the slapping sound of sneakers against the floor. He looked up, the wind leaving his lungs when he saw his girlfriend frantically rushing towards him, her brown eyes wide with fear.

As she got closer, he could see tears building in her eyes. Mike was starting to get very worried. "El? El, what's wrong?" he asked quickly.

She shook her head quickly, coming to a stop in front of him. "Mike," she breathed. She let go of the book she was clutching to her chest with one hand to grab his arm. "Mike, I made a mistake."

The worry was building in his chest. "How? What happened?" She glanced around the halls with terrified eyes before she was pulling him down the halls. "El, where are we going? Can you tell me what happened? _Please_?"

"Shh, Mike!" Her voice was stronger than she usually used with him, but it quivered slightly from her tears. He wisely shut his mouth. 

His questions were answered when she pulled him into the A.V. Room. She slammed the door behind them. Mike didn't even get a chance to breathe before she launched herself into his arms, her sobs muffled by his shoulder.

He squeezed her tightly against himself, wrapping his arms around her. "El, please tell me what happened. I'm here to help. It's hard for me to see you like this without knowing the cause." His own voice was tight at the sight of his distraught girlfriend. He hated seeing the girl he loved like this.

He let her cling to him and let out the remainders of tears before she pulled back. And, despite the situation, Mike still found himself thinking about how beautiful she was. He wiped away one of her tears with his thumb as she swallowed roughly.

"I-I was in the library, and I had a p-pile of books in my arms...and-" She sniffled, swiping her hand under her nose. "And I t-tripped and the books started to fall, so I did the s-stupidest thing I could've done and u-used my powers to hover them in the air."

Mike felt his eyes widen as he listened to her story. El rarely used her powers in public, unless it was in a small way that no one would notice (she still got a talking to from Hopper). But she never used them like that. 

"Did anyone see you?" He watched as her face crumpled again. He knew the answer. "Shit. Who was it?"

She sniffled again. "Stacey and her friends. T-they were talking in the aisle next to me. They saw." She gasped, her eyes filling with tears. "Oh, Mike! This is so bad!" She started to sob again.

This was one of the things they all feared. Someone seeing her use her powers could end horribly. Especially if one of the people who saw were Stacey. What she had seen would be spread like wildfire. She couldn't keep anything to herself.

And that would mean El could get taken away again. Mike couldn't bare it; he'd had her in his life for four years. He _couldn't_ lose her again. He just _couldn't_. But he didn't want to scare her, so he took a calming breath and tried to push his own tears again.

"Are you _sure_ they saw you?" El sniffled.

"I'm pretty sure they did. They looked right at me after."

"Oh, shit," Mike said, unable to hide his fear of what this could mean.

They'd been able to keep El's powers a secret for so long. She'd stayed in the cabin for a year, just like Dr. Owens had said. She only used her powers at her or her friends' houses. Why did this have to happen after all their hard work?

"We need to leave. Right now. And we need to tell Hopper." El's widened.

"He'll be so mad at me, Mike! I can't tell him!"

Mike grabbed her shoulders. "El! He needs to know. he can help us. He can help keep you _safe_." El hesitated, before nodding.

"Okay. Let's go." He grabbed her hand. El grabbed her books and the two of them ran down the hall. Mike picked up his stuff from his locker before they headed out of Hawkins High, booting it to Mike's car.

They're at El's house before they know it, and inside, El drags them into the kitchen where, sure enough, Hopper is having a cup of coffee and snacking on chips.

"Oh hey, kids," he dragged, putting down his newspaper. His smirk dropped when he saw the frieghtened look on the young couple's faces. "What's wrong? Did something happen at school?"

El swallowed. "Yes, something...something happened." Hopper deflated.

"Come sit down. Both of you." Mike and El let go of each other's hands and sat down at two of the other chairs at the table. "Now, tell me what happened."

El tells him the whole story, and by the end of it, she's sobbing, her nose running and tears dripping down her cheeks.

"I'm sorry, Dad! It was an accident!" she sobbed. Hopper looked close to crying, too. Just like Mike, he knew how bad this could be; how this could end. He had the same fear Mike did, which was one of the few things the two had in common.

They both just wanted El safe.

"Shit, El! How could you use your powers in public?" Hopper exclaimed, letting his frustration get the best of him. El flinched at his loud voice.

"I don't know, okay!" Mike grabbed El's hand, swallowing down his own tears as he watched this unfold before him. Hopper rarely yelled at El, so this was a rare moment. 

The father and daughter stared at each other before Hopper's anger was replaced with sadness. 

"Well, first we need to find out if they actually saw you."

* * *

Mike was on a mission.

After talking to Hopper the day before, he had taken the job of finding out if Stacey had actually seen the whole thing. Well, actually, Hopper said he would, but Mike knew he wouldn't get anything out of the girl, so it was better Mike did it himself.

He didn't tell El nor Hopper about his plan. It was something he would keep to himself until it was over and done with.

So, after saying goodbye to his friends at lunch, he told El he needed to run to the bathroom, so she could walk with Dustin to their class so she wouldn't be late. She'd agreed hesitantly, the fear still lining her big, brown eyes he loved so much.

It hurt him to see El so scared. She'd been jumpy and on-edge all day, and he didn't blame her, but it was still hard to see her like that. He didn't want her to be scared of getting caught anymore. He didn't want her to be afraid of the Bad Men popping up and taking her back to that horrid lab.

She shouldn't have to afraid of that anymore, and now she was, so he was going to fix it. If Stacey said they hadn't seen anything weird, then he'd leave them alone. But if they said they had, he'd convince them they hadn't seen anything.

Easy peasey.

Mike strode down the half-empty halls of the high school. He searched left and right to find Stacey and her little friends.

He finally spotted them, walking down one of the halls towards the Science classroom. Mike walked faster to catch up with them.

He stopped next to them and grabbed Stacey, pulling her into a nearby storage closet. He closed the door and pulled the string on the light to turn it on.

"What the _hell,_ Wheeler?" she exclaimed, staring at him in horror, her painted mouth hanging open. She tried to push past him, but he pushed her back.

"No, please, stay here."

She smirked. "Oh, Wheeler. Finally decide to leave Jane and come running to me?" She smacked on her gum as she watched Mike's mouth gape open.

"What, no! That's not what's going on here. Nobody's as good as Jane."

She laughed. "Mhm, sure."

He rolled his eyes. "That's not what I pulled you in here for, alright?" She stared at him, one brow raised. "I need to adk you something. Something important."

"Go ahead," she said, looking bored as she pulled away from his hands and lifted her own to stare at her manicured nails. Mike almost rolled his eyes again. She was irritating, to say the least. He really hoped she hadn't seen anything.

"So, in the library yesterday, you were there with your friends?" She looked up, nodded, then looked back down at her nails. "Anyways...Jane was there, too. She said you guys saw her...doing something."

Stacey looked at him with a weirded-out look. "Doing something? What are you saying, Wheeler?"

Mike sighed. "What I'm trying to ask is, did you happen to see, say, books floating?" Stacey stared at him for a second, before she tossed her head back and burst out into loud laughter. Mike blinked.

"What the fuck, Wheeler? Are you high or something?" she asked, still laughing in his face. "Right, King Nerd, I have science, and don't have any more time to deal with this shit, alright? Now leave me alone and never talk to me again beacsue I'd rather be caught dead then talking to you."

She pushed past him and opened the door, leaving Mike standing alone in the musky closet.

"Huh," Mike said to himself, before grinning and pumping a fist in the air. "Yes!" he exclaimed, before he rushed out to go find El and tell her the good news.

She was okay. No one had seen. She was safe again.

And man, did it feel good.

* * *

Mike didn't actually get to tell El until the end of school. He'd been late to class and had gotten a lecture, and he didn't share any other classes with her for the rest of the day.

It was torture waiting, but when the bell finally rang, he jumped out of his seat to go find El.

Once he had all of his stuff, he headed straight to El's locker, where he knew she probably was, collecting her own stuff. He'd pull her in and kiss her with everything he had before they went to his car and he'd tell her everything and then they could celebrate their victory.

It was the perfect plan. Mike was smiling as he headed to where El's locker was located. He swerved around other students as the passed by him, too excited to really care about anyone else other than his beautiful girl.

But he stopped when he got to her locker and...she wasn't there. His heart dropped, along with his smile. He looked around the halls, and his smile came back when he started to head to the library, the second place he always looked for her.

But she wasn't there either. Mike checked the classroom her last class was in, the gym, even the girl's bathroom, but she wasn't anywhere.

After he couldn;t find her anywhere, he decided to look in the last place he could think of, which was the parking lot. She could be with Max or the guys or maybe waiting for him at his car.

He jogged down the halls and burst through the door, his smile back again as he made his way towards his car.

He stopped in his tracks when he suddenly heard the faint sound of someone yelling.

"Mike!" he heard. "Mike!" His heart leapt into his throat, his smile dropping. He turned around and followed the sound of her voice, _El's_ voice.

Fear started to build in his chest as he got closer and closer to the sound of her scared voice. She started to get louder, her voice almost a scream. 

"El!" Mike shouted back, his voice shaking. "El!" 

"Mike, help! Mike!" Her voice suddenly became muffled. " _Mike, please. Mike!"_

He followed her voice, which led him to the side parking lot of the school, and his heart dropped when he saw the sight before him.

El. White car. Bad Men.

El. Cloth in her mouth. A burly man holding her arms behind her back as he yanked her towards the car. El's legs thrashing as she tried to get away from him.

"El!" Mike screamed, his face pale as a sheet and tears filling his eyes as he ran closer. 

El tried to get out of the man's tight grasp. "Mike! Help! Help me! Mike!" Her eyes were overflowing with tears, her face full of so much fear. Fear of leaving Mike. Fear of leaving her friends. Fear of leaving her dad. 

A fear of going back to _that place_.

"El! Mike screamed again, tears filling his eyes. He kept running, but suddenly his legs gave out as he tripped over a rock. He tumbled to the ground, pain shooting through every inch of his body, but he didn't care. He tried to get up. 

When he looked up, he saw that two men had joined the other one. El's eyes met Mike's; tear-filled hazel and brown orbs meeting in the middle. El sobbed, her nose starting to bleed as she pushed one of the men off her with her powers.

She screamed as she flung one of the other men away. Mike pushed himself off the groung, finally pushing past the pain to go save his El. He ignored the stabbing pain in his ankle and hands, which had rocks embedded in the soft skin.

"Mike-" she exclaimed, but was cut off. The man had grabbed a needle and stabbed it straight into El's neck. Her eyes fluttered, before she became limp in the man's arms.

"El! No, El!" The door of the car slammed, locked. "No!" Mike screamed. He limped towards the car, attempting to shove the man away to open the door, but the man was stronger. He shoved Mike to the ground.

Mike lifted his throbbing head to see the man get in the car, and before he knew it, it was whizzing out of the parking lot.

"No," he said weakly, trying to get up. "No! No! Fucking shit! El!" After a few weak attempts to get off the ground, he fell back to the asphalt. He started to sob, wrapping his scraped around himself, curling into himself.

He felt so weak. So helpless. And so, so broken, like a piece of himself was torn away from him.

It hurt _so bad._ It hurt more then the first time. The first time was _nothing_ compared to the first time.

This time was different. She was no longer a girl he had only known for a week. 

No, she was his girl. He knew her every little thing about her. He'd been on millions of dates with her. He's shared so many sweet word and soft kisses. She'd been his first everything. She was the one he went to when he needed comfort and she was the one he read his nerdy comics to and made cheesy mistapes for.

She was his light. She was his life. She was his person. She was his soulmate. She was his _world_. 

And she was gone.

And he'd _never_ felt so empty.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry. I never write sad fics, because I hate writing them and I also love happy endings and fluffy fics. But I thought, why not try it? So, I did. And I don't know if I ever will again, haha.
> 
> Thanks for reading! Until next time.


End file.
